Variations on a musical enigma: John Cage's strangest work to get its British premiere

It is probably the only piece of music which has complicated engineering schematics in place of sheet music and requires household appliances instead of instruments - one reason it is rarely performed and has never been attempted in the UK. That will change this year with the British premiere of the late John Cage's Variations VII.

The work is so unusual that it has achieved an almost mythical status during the 40 years since it was first performed. Cage insisted at the time that his project was "simple to describe". He said: "It is a piece of music, indeterminate in form and detail ... Using as sound sources only those sounds, which are in the air at the moment of performance, picked up via the communication bands, telephone lines, microphones together with, instead of musical instruments, a variety of household appliances and frequency generators ... they produce a situation different than anyone could have pre-imagined."

The piece, performed in New York's vast 69th Regiment Armoury in October 1966, involved having 10 open telephone lines to various places in the city - including the New York Times press room, Luchow's restaurant, the dog pound, Merce Cunningham's dance studio, and a friend's terrapin tank. Throw in a blender, a juicer, a toaster, fans, radios and two Geiger counters and you are probably still no closer to imagining the extraordinary collage of sound Cage produced. For obvious reasons, the piece is seldom attempted, which is why there is such keen expectation before the UK premiere of Variations VII at the electronic arts festival AV Festival 08, held every two years in venues across the north-east.

Honor Harger, the festival director who commissioned the piece, admitted: "Yes, it could sound awful. It could sound amazing."

The hows and the whats are still being discussed before the performance at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead on February 29, but some of the whos have been decided. The Newcastle upon Tyne experimental music duo Zoviet France, and the composer Atau Tanaka will use Cage's detailed instructions but also innovate.

"It is a big artistic challenge and the temptation is to be very literal, but to be true to the spirit of Cage we've got to update," said Harger. "We can now use mobile phones, we can now use Skype. We will be using today's technology.

"It was first performed at an event that was about using new technology. They were breaking new ground and in order to be in the spirit of the piece we have to have the chance of discovering something new to leave the audience with the same frisson."

Cage is regarded by some as the 20th century's most important composer and certainly there are few who were more inventive. The avant gardist was perhaps best known for works including 0´0´´, in which he chopped and blended vegetables before drinking the juice. Or 4´33´´ (1952) in which a motionless performer remains silent on stage for four minutes and 33 seconds.

Variations VII, with detailed flow diagrams but no score, is arguably the most challenging Cage piece. The AV Festival will be held in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough from February 28 to March 8.